Fashion Statement
by Jordanna Morgan
Summary: Even Joker's choice of attire included a joke no one else would get.


**Title:** Fashion Statement  
**Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
**Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
**Rating/Warnings:** PG for blood and dark psychological themes.  
**Characters:** Arthur Fleck.  
**Setting:** Before Arthur leaves for the TV studio.  
**Summary:** Even Joker's choice of attire included a joke no one else would get.  
**Disclaimer:** Joker belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. I'm just playing with him.  
**Notes:** This is just me exploring yet another fascinating detail about the movie. See the end notes for details.

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After messily but so _satisfyingly_ disposing of Randall, there was a moment when Arthur considered leaving the man's blood on his face. It would have made for a hell of a statement on TV.

The idea was only briefly entertained. Even if he made the blood appear to be a part of his makeup, the network was certainly far too prudish to put him on the air that way—especially given the current tensions in the city. Randall had reminded him that the clown-masked protesters he'd unwittingly inspired were planning to rally that very night. One more painted face on the street would ironically attract little notice just now, but a _bloodied_ face could still draw too much attention, too soon. With that in mind, unwilling to risk being stopped before the grand finale he had planned, he rather ruefully cleaned himself up and reapplied his makeup.

It began with the familiar patterns of Carnival's face: blue triangles to frame his eyes within a pair of diamonds, red eyebrows high upon his forehead like streaks of blood themselves. However, once he had painted the broad red mouth around his lips, he paused. After a long moment of contemplating his reflection, he rejected the sharp dark lines that had always defined Carnival's mouth, instead merely lengthening its corners into a thin scarlet smile that tapered all the way to his cheekbones. Having no intention of cheapening this new look with an artificial clown nose, he finished with another dab of red at the end of his real one… and then for a few minutes he sat very still, simply taking in the whole of his handiwork.

This was not the paper-thin mask of levity that Carnival had been… but an image of his own soul, finally brought to the surface. Just as the laugh he had struggled lifelong to deny was the _real_ him, so was the haunting apparition that now stared back at him from the mirror.

A genuine smile curved the painted one even more deeply as he rose to dress.

On his way to his own funeral, he would wear the same garish red suit that had been his gleefully inappropriate choice for Penny's burial. The only change he made at first was to replace the white shirt with an equally vivid teal-green one, ornamented with a pattern of circles. After a life lived in imprisoning drabness inside and out, he wanted his exit to be as gaudy as possible; yet even the clash of those two intense hues was still not enough.

Struck with inspiration, he moved to the closet, where he dug out a bundle he had carefully buried away from prying eyes three weeks earlier. These were Carnival's clothes, last worn by him that fateful night on the subway. Especially after his questioning by the police, he wasn't sure what had stopped him from sneaking them out to some back alley and burning them… but now, he was glad he hadn't.

As he unfolded the garments, he was certain he could still smell the tang of gunpowder.

Even as poor shabby Carnival, there had only been one truly colorful element to his attire, and that was the orange-yellow waistcoat. He quickly replaced the red waistcoat of the suit with that one instead—and then beamed happily at what he saw in the mirror. The pop of _three_ searing colors satisfied him at last. Not only that, but the red and gold of suit and waistcoat were like a much brighter inversion of the rust-colored sweater and dishwater-yellow windbreaker he had so often worn in the past. The reversal seemed somehow fitting for a man who had turned his whole being inside out.

Best of all, he was openly wearing a memento of the night when he first killed—and no one would even realize it. This would be his own private joke, an unrecognized middle finger to the world he meant to part ways with.

His image perfected, he prepared to leave. He loaded the pistol, slowly and methodically; and once done, it joined the folded journal he had tucked away beneath his jacket.

The weight of the weapon dropping into his pocket was more comforting than any human touch he had ever received.

With a final smirk at Randall's body in the entryway, Joker strolled out the door, filled with the joy of knowing he would never cross that threshold again.

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**End Notes:** I've consumed a lot of commentary on _Joker_, but I haven't seen anyone else point out that Joker's waistcoat is identical to Carnival's—and therefore, presumably the same one he wore during his first kills. (…Or maybe I'm just the only person who didn't consider it too obvious to bother mentioning.) In any case, I found that to be a _really_ interesting choice from a psychological standpoint, so this fic was a little exercise in examining his thought process on that. Detailing the evolution of his makeup from Carnival to Joker was an added bonus.

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_2019 Jordanna Morgan_


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